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Timeline of Paradigm
As the human scribes tell it, at the beginning of all things there was only Spirit. Spirit was formless: thought, intuition, emotion, and elemental vitality. In the center of this vast essence was the World Tree. The World Tree gave shapes to the thoughts combining and separating in its consciousness, and these shapes were the gods. The gods explored Spirit, molding it and giving it shape of their own. When they tired of the emptiness of Spirit, they created matter, and from matter, the universe. They shaped Zoka with their hands, and left Spirit to flow across the newly-shaped world along its own paths. The gods created oceans and seas, raised mountains and spread out valleys. They peopled the globe with the birds of the air and all the artless animals, and then fashioned children for themselves, beings they could love and cherish, which could love and cherish in return. Above all these, then, the World Tree too created, giving these children the name Man&endash;and dominion over everything. Man flourished, spreading over the surface of the world; some settled in the south, some settled in the west. Others went north, and others went east. So is written the origin of the human races. Key Merfolk Eastern Dynasty Faydakeen Western Empire Szurgiki Blades of Paradigm Aerin the Defiler Calla Lowlands 12,000 years ago The merfolk begin to craft Songs, the earliest being mere copies of fragments of the great whales', strung together to tell tales of their own experience. 10,000 years ago Ming Xiajang founds the Eastern Dynasty and establishes a system of government for the new kingdom. He becomes the first Damiyo. 9,280 years ago The Zhenpiyan culture of the Eastern Dynasty invents pottery. 8,000 years ago The culture of the merfolk is at its peak, the Grand Sea Realm spanning the world's oceans. The merfolk are skilled in shaping water and manipulating the currents. 7,860 years ago The pig is domesticated in the Eastern Dynasty. 7,500 years ago The Eastern Dynasty perfects the cultivation of rice. 7,020 years ago The Grand Sea Realm is in decline, a worrisome sickness affecting many merfolk. The Qi Lines of the world are rearranging in anticipation of the Penglian Order's discovery and harnessing of the force, cutting off the merfolk from their energy nodes. 7,000 years ago Monks of the Penglian Order, after studying the manipulation techniques of the merfolk, devise the concept of Qi and within a decade can manifest the force as fundamental elements. The Elementalist profession is founded. 6,974 years ago Calla region settlements establish rudiments of the nation that will one day be known as the Fenwall Kingdom. 6,800 years ago A self-serving monk named Aerin, naturally adept at Qi use but at odds with the fundaments of the Penglian Order, sets out to establish an empire in the vast plains by the shallow Ilætî Sea. 6,780 years ago The majority of the oceanic merfolk vanish, over the span of a few scant years, leaving scattered pockets who had been unaffiliated with the Grand Sea Realm. All but a few Songs which were common to all merfolk are lost, making the Grand Sea Realm just a faint memory, a legend. 6772 years ago The minor civilisation of Nain inhabiting the southern area of the Jinfonth Mountains is utterly destroyed by Aerin, leaving only crumbling ruins of the rooms and watchtowers carved out of the caves. Goblins begin to take over the depths of the caves, deep into the mountain range. 6,750 years ago With Aerin swelling in power and hubris far faster than the gods could permit, a punishment was meted in the form of a mountain falling from the sky onto Aerin's citadel. Massive upheavals in the land transformed the Ilætî Sea and erased Aerin's empire. Such was the focus of Qi at the spot Aerin stood that the very heart of the citadel managed to survive, becoming a cursed island now called Aerin's Folly. 6,750 years ago The merfolk civilisation of the Ilætî Sea, not part of the Grand Sea Realm, is obliterated in an instant when the landscape is shifted, lifting the depths above sea level. The psychic disruption and sudden release of souls flows northwest, saturating the Fen bog. 6,720 years ago The Fen bog first becomes a serious threat, undead and disease beginning to encroach on the survivors of the apocalypse further north. 6,680 years ago The Calla Senate authorises the Order of Flame to use any means necessary to save the country, approving their plan to construct a wall. 6,678 years ago The Order of Flames finalises their plans for the Fen Wall and begins construction. The Calla Senate is dissolved after a tragedy costs the lives of the first builders and accompanying Senators. 6,660 years ago General Wan Heung Chen takes the dance-like motions of Elementalism and transforms the gestures and forms into a fighting style usable either with weapons or bare handed. He calls the style Wan Fu, "The Art of Wan". 6,628 years ago The Fen Wall is completed and consecrated. 6,430 years ago Migrants settle in the desert, and name the region the Al-Kabir. They name themselves Faydakeen, meaning 'Far seeing'. 6,300 years ago The Faydakeen, as a culture, becomes obsessed with death and the afterlife. 6,221 years ago The Faydakeen formalize and institutionalize the Aramait writing system. 6,000 years ago The Dynasty domesticates chicken, sheep, oxen, and dogs. 6,000 years ago Humans from the north settle in the southwestern peninsula of Paradigm. Led by the warrior-king Jirongo, they drive out bands of orcs, gnolls, and ogres to establish a fledgling kingdom. 5,880 years ago Miners discover an abundance of mineral riches in the mountains of the western kingdom. 5,788 years ago The Dynasty develops weaving and the use of plant dyes to produce the first silk. 5,624 years ago Qi master and politician Saergi Kigh perfects a technique of vitalizing his own body with Qi, suppressing death. He becomes the first lich. He announces the soverignity of the Western Empire and names himself Emperor. The Eastern Dynasty is quick to denounce the new emperor as an abomination against nature. 5,269 to 4,700 years ago Imperial settlers continue to push outwards, despite increasing hostilities from monster races. The Imperial States begin to be formed. 5,012 years ago Gnolls invade the Dynasty and attack small settlements. The Damiyo, Fu Piyang, responds by mobilizing the entire army. The gnoll species in the East is nearly made extinct. 4,654 years ago The Harrigan Wars begin in the Western Empire. The five-year conflict is a stalemate until a cabal of Eastern Dynastic elementalists arrive on the front and drive off the Harrigan. The event sparks an alliance and trade aggreements between the West and East. 4,440 years ago The Faydakeen practice agriculture and domesticate goats. 4,391 years ago Alston Vequell founds the Vequell Woodlands region in the Western Empire and introduces Pizkie and Imperial culture to each other. 4,200 years ago Emperor Kigh's Imperial troops, including the newly-introduced Jannisaries, crush religious dissension in the newly formed Middle Kingdoms region. The Imperials discover Mattimeo settlements, and the two races quickly bond in friendship. 4,176 years ago Imperial settlers establish the Tardelt Plains and Highridge Mountains regions in the Western Empire. The Nain are discovered in the mountains. After a shaky start, the Empire declares the Nain to be Imperial citizens. 4,156 years ago Irrigation techniques in Al-Kabir increases farmland and food production. The Al-Kabir pantheon is formalized. 4,000 years ago In the Western Empire, the Spriggan city of Underdark declares a campaign of genocide on the Pizkie. The war lasts for eight months before the Empire sends in reinforcements and crushes the Spriggan military engine. 3,842 years ago In the Western Empire, the realm's first great Guilds are founded. 3,505 years ago Imperial merchant ships establish continent-wide overseas trade routes. 3,500 years ago The Faydakeen invent an improved sail. 3,000 years ago The Eastern Dynasty domesticates the buffalo and invents the plow. 3,000 years ago The Faydakeen invent an annual calendar based on the solar day, the lunar month, and the solar year. 2,967 years ago Western sailors establish diplomatic relations with the Calla Lowlands. 2,920 years ago Pharaoh Menes-Aha conquers the northern regions of the Al-Kabir and unites the entire nation and builds the capitol of Jodhapur. 2,900 to 2,400 years ago The Golden Centuries. Five hundred years of prosperity, peace, cultural achievement, and integrating other races and cultures for the Western Empire. The Empire is at its most wealthy and most powerful, and proclaimed the most powerful empire on Paradigm. 2,890 years ago The Faydakeen perfect mummification and taxidermy techniques. 2,800 years ago Dwarves living in Al-Kabir disseminate the techniques of mining and gem cutting to the Faydakeen. 2,737 years ago Yan Wuxing becomes Damiyo of the Dynasty and instigates sweeping reforms of education, social status, food cultivation, and law. He outlaws slavery in the East and makes life so much better for the Easterlings that he is called the Golden Emperor and considered even in modern times the greatest Damiyo the Dynasty has ever seen. The Samurai profession is founded on tenets and principles Damiyo Yan dictates (and lives by himself). 2,456 years ago For the first time, Faydakeen government allows people not directly descended from the ruling class to attain titles of nobility, including that of Pharaoh. 2,700 years ago The Faydakeen begin creating flax paper and create the art of book binding. 2,660 years ago Faydakeen explorers venture into the Deep Desert. Only one returns, mad and screaming about a black pyramid at the heart of the desert. 2,600 years ago Formal poetry and organized choir music invented by the Faydakeen. 2,500 years ago The monk Zhuanxu, a direct descendant of the Golden Emperor, leads the Shi clan in an eastward migration to present-day Ba Seng Be, where intermarriages with the Donya clan enlarge and augment their tribal influences. At age twenty, he becomes Damiyo, going on to rule for seventy-eight years until his death. 2,361 years ago The Dynasty makes contact with Al-Kabir and establishes trade agreements and routes. 2,375 years ago The Western Empire's first attempt to colonize the Pradamir Savanna fails after a five year military campaign against the united resistance of the Altoisa, Savanna Kings, and Salaquendi. The last colonists die horribly of starvation after their colony is seiged and blockaded. Eventually, the Empire forges a contractual settling agreement which satisfies the natives of the Pradamir. 2,355 years ago Imperial explorers head north to explore the Frozen Wastes and encounter a race of fearsome wolf-like creatures called the Jagrafan. Other creatures, such as Bearmen, Bugbears, and dragons are also discovered. Western slavers bring 12 Jagrafan home, where Emperor Kigh sends them to their deaths in the gladitorial arena. This act causes the Jagrafan to declare undying enmity on humans. 2,194 years ago The Eastern Dynasty enters its Bronze Age. 2,150 years ago Al-Kabir is stricken with a famine that lasts for eighteen years. The high death rate causes civil disorder, prompting the Pharaoh to establish trade agreements with the Western Empire and the Calla Lowlands. 1,985 years ago The Pharaoh signs an alliance treaty with nations of the Calla Lowlands, establishing that in the event of war each nation will back the other. 1,831 years ago A massive earthquake strikes the Eastern Dynasty, killing nearly ten thousand people. 1,718 years ago Founding of the Artificer's Guild. 1,700 years ago The Faydakeen invent, practice, and disseminate diagnostic medicine to the Calla Lowlands, the Western Empire, and the Eastern Dynasty. Diagnostic Medicine becomes the founding principle on which the Healer and Doctor professions emerge. 1,690 years ago A Kraati named Miita accompanying the Faydakeen emissaries to the Calla Lowlands is given a dream by the gods–part of which is later to be conveyed as the Szurgiki Vision–and constructs a massive weapon spread across the cluster of islands to be used against a devastating enemy from the sky. This weapon, named the Starwall Device, is based on fantastic theorems and entirely-untested systems and components, and its creator dies before even fully completing it, or telling any of its existence and how to operate it save in cryptic notes sent to the Artificer's Guild (which are filed away and forgotten). 1,600 years ago The Battle of Minghua in the Eastern Dynasty. The battle is fought between armies of the Hu Clan and the ruling Damiyo Jie Xia. The Hu Clan is victorious and overthrows Jie Xia. The general of the clan, Yo Yin, becomes Damiyo and establishes the law that only his hereditary line can claim the throne. He unifies the tribal clans and the Dynasty and its people become one nation. 1,230 years ago Scribe Wu Ding invents the Eastern calendar. 1,230 years ago The Thane, a race of humanoid rats, virtually take over the sewer systems of larger Imperial cities. Other inhuman menaces such as goblins and kobolds also root themselves in and under the great cities. 1,200 years ago Prospero, likely the greatest Mage of all time, writes the 12 Tomes of All Knowledge and disseminates them throughout the Nations of Paradigm. They are all lost, and legends say that a reader of a single book will gain all the knowledge of that book's subject, and reading the entire set will give the reader the mind of a god. 1,160 years ago The Eastern Uprising. Furious at Damiyo Muye for his oppression, the citizens revolt when the Damiyo declares Eleamentalism, marriage, and childbearing illegal. Muye is executed whilst his palace burns. 1,152 years ago Beginning of two generations of stripping whatever of value can be found by Pana royalty in their domain. 1,034 years ago The Eastern Dynasty enters the Iron Age. 900 years ago Many merchants, craftsmen, and settlers leave the major cities of the Western Empire for the new promised land: the Old Frontier. Most are good, hardworking people, fearful of the corrupt nobility. Dubbed "the Silent Rebellion", this mass exodus cripples the Western Empire and sends it teetering on the edge of collapse. Emperor Kigh takes action, exterminating the monster races in the great cities and initiating sweeping tax reforms that makes it easier for people to live. 840 years ago Szurgi codify their culture as a unified people, a nomadic seafaring assemblage of primarily Western Imperials and Faydakeen 645 years ago Damiyo Xiang centralizes administrative and economic reforms that produce an economic boom in the Eastern Dynasty. 632 years ago A scrap of Miita's notes and schematics, containing references to the Starwall Device and the enemy against which it should be used, is discovered by two Szurgi washed ashore from a shipwreck. They form the Cult of the Star, and begin to push behind-the-scenes for settlement of the area. The Cult pledges to seek the Device and keep it in trust for when it is needed, but hide the knowledge from those who would misuse it (that is to say, everyone). 597 years ago Szurgiki founded. 580 years ago Luz given formal apology and status as independent nation by King Gryr XIV of Pana. 572 years ago Elements of the Starwall Device are discovered by adventuring party exploring the breadth of Szurgiki (secretly funded by the Cult of the Star for that very purpose). The party inadvertently activates a subsystem that causes the Vision of Szurgiki to manifest (the existence of this causal relationship is unknown to all but the Cult), and the party's existence and resulting mishap are quietly removed from public records. 548 years ago A three-year-long drought and crop blight in the Western Empire becomes the worst famine in Imperial history, called "the Feast of Bones." A series of plagues also sweep across the land. Thousands of humans, Nain, and Mattimeo die. 353 years ago Uprising begins against the Order of the Flame in the Fenwall Kingdom. 326 years ago Midar, Free State gains independence after forcing the Fenwall Kingdom's authorities to realise the only way to win would be to destroy all the rebels, gaining nothing. 320 years ago The Fenwall Kingdom manages to recover from its loss by directing all its energy inwards, focusing on improving defense and all but closing its borders to open trade. The authoritarian regime struggles to tighten its grip on the populace while pacifying them to prevent another rebellion. 83 years ago Facing complete revolution from the Imperial city-states that have been consumed by corruption, Emperor Kigh personally commands a massive army of humans, Mattimeo, and Pizkie. The army sweeps across the land. Kigh offers all nobles he encounters a choice: complete surrender or annihilation. Region after region falls to the Reform Army. Kigh promotes wealthy but lower Houses to fill open positions above them and has his advisors pick worthy merchant clans, military families, and other notable groups to act as ground-level nobility. Kigh rebuilds the Empire's shattered roadways, waterways, and cities. 75 years ago Perimi Meadowflower is born in Greenlake Villa, Tardelt Plains, Western Empire. 52 years ago Tinkers seem to come out of the woodwork all across Paradigm after they are banished from the Artificers' Guild, offering for sale wondrous trinkets and devices to all, at prices even commoners can afford. 20 years ago Feena ab Nhuit is born in Benis, Szurgiki. 15 years ago The Western Empire is inflicted with "Goblin Fever", a disease that causes inflammation of the skin, excessive thirst, and violent psychotioc breaks. Faydakeen physicians discover the cause of the disease is a certain fungus that grows on wheat crops. 13,000 Imperial citizens die before the physicians develop a cure and preventative. 4 years ago Mother Superior Nanaki Meadowflower speaks The Prophecy of The Gods whilst in a delirium of fever. 1 year ago Perimi and her companions part ways after some adventures. Year of the OwlBear: Prime Damiyo Gassuke invades the Upper Pradamir to begin his conquest of Paradigm. Year of the OwlBear: New Birth Pradamir militias are organized by Lothlindel of the Shelded Glade. Pleas for reinforcements from Al-Kabir and the Western Empire are sent. The pleas fall on deaf ears in the Empire. Year of the OwlBear: Planting The Pharaoh Et-Amun officially declares war and dispatches 5,000 troops to assist in the Pradamir against the Eastern Dynasty. Year of the OwlBear: Quint After 56 days of siege of the Shelded Glade, the Eastern Dynasty unleashes the New Death across the Pradamir. Shelded Glade falls, the Queen Lothlindel is taken and the Dynasty claims the Upper Pradamir. The area is renamed the Dynastic Savannah. To read the adventures of the group's journey, read The Days